Event Date
⭐️ Presented by the UC Davis Choruses, Nicolás Alberto Dosman and Rollo Dilworth
If the American Dream includes hope of a better life in a promised land, then the story we tell must also acknowledge that dream has not always been equally available to all Americans. This concert gives us both sentiments of this “American Story.”
Rollo Dilworth set his choral and wind ensemble work “Weather” to the poem of the same name by Claudia Rankine. “Weather” (the poem) appeared in the New York Times Magazine shortly after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. It captured in a few pointed phrases the pain of the pandemic and of America’s racial conflicts. Using American-born musical traditions, including the Blues, Rollo Dilworth juxtaposes Rankine’s words against a musical fabric, which challenges us to accept this part of our American story, and in time weather that challenge.
André Thomas, a composer known around the world for his spirituals, wrote his “Mass of Love and Joy” (filled with moving and joyous spirituals) in 2018 upon his own retirement, and which concludes and lifts up this choral concert. Thomas says of his work, “anyone can relate to spirituals. Everyone goes through trials and everyone looks for comfort.”
